AAIC: Antidepressants May Help Reduce Levels of Alzheimer’s Marker

Depression is thought to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. And antidepressants appear to decrease the amount of a substance thought to be a contributor to the disease, according to new animal research presented yesterday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

In two studies, Yvette Sheline, a professor at Washington University, and colleagues found that mice who were given doses of antidepressants in the short term — over 24 hours — showed a 25% reduction in brain levels of amyloid, the sticky substance thought to be a contributor to the disease, compared to mice who didn’t get the medicine.

The second mouse study also found the same effect persisted a longer period of time, 16 weeks. Mice that were chronically administered an antidepressant in the class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, showed a 50% reduction in amyloid clumps in the hippocampus (a part of the brain involved with memory that is damaged in Alzheimer’s) and 62% decrease in the cerebral cortex compared to mice who didn’t get the medication.

Sheline then looked at a sample of 186 healthy people who had received a brain scan measuring amyloid in the brain and asked them about lifetime treatment with antidepressants. Those with a reported history of antidepressant use had a lower amyloid load, consistent with the mouse research.

The researchers are going to continue to try to tease apart the relationship between depression, antidepressants and development of dementia, Sheline says.

The findings thus far are suggestive, but more research needs to be conducted, she tells the Health Blog. The results are “important enough” to justify a prospective trial of whether antidepressant use in humans reduces amyloid plaques in the brain, she says.

Comments (1 of 1)

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